But it is evident that mere simplicity of style is not enough, for there is a manner of writing which does not satisfy us, though it may be simple and also carefully done. Such, for instance, is the prose style of Southey, which was apparently the model for all American writing in its day. We see the result in the early volumes of the North American Review, whose traditions of rather tame correctness were what enabled us to live through the Carlyle epoch with safety. The aim of this style was to avoid all impulse, brilliancy, or surprise,--to be perfectly colorless; it was a highly polished smoothness, on which the thoughts slid like balls. But style is capable of something more than smoothness and clearness; you see this something more when you turn from Prescott to Motley, for instance; there is a new quality in the page,--it has become alive. _Freshness_ is perhaps the best word to describe this additional element; it is a style that has blood in it. This may come from various sources,--good health, animal spirits, outdoor habits, or simply an ardent nature. It is hard to describe this quality, or to give rules for it; the most obvious way to acquire it is to keep one's life fresh and vigorous, to write only what presses to be said, and to utter that as if the world waited for the saying. Where lies the extraordinary power of "Jane Eyre," for instance? In the intense earnestness which vitalizes every line; each atom of the author's life appears to come throbbing and surging through it; every sentence seems endowed with a soul of its own, and looks up at you with human eyes. The next element of literary art may be said to be _structure_. So strong in the American mind is the demand for system and completeness, that the logical element of style, which is its skeleton, is not rare among us. But this is only the basis; besides the philosophical structure of a statement which comes by thought, there is an artistic structure which implies the education of the taste. So, in the human body, there is a symmetry of the bony frame, and there is a further symmetry of the rounded flesh which should cover it; and in literature it is not enough to have a perfectly framed logical skeleton,--there should be also a well-proportioned beauty of utterance, which is the flesh. Unless this inward and outward structure exist, although a book may be never so valuable, it hardly comes within the domain of literary art.